270 RUDENESS AND SIMPLICITY. 



elegance, under many circumstances not less charming, 

 and always more picturesque. Elegance is suggestive of 

 art and painstaking; rudeness, of freedom and nature. 

 Elegance reminds you of effort ; rudeness, of repose. The 

 one is associated with freedom, the other with exclusive- 

 ness. We see the fondness of people for the sensations 

 produced by each of these qualities displayed in rude 

 flower-baskets, made of neatly joined pales, with the bark 

 side outward, and filled with flowers elegant both in colors 

 and arrangement. But of the two qualities elegance will 

 sooner weary the mind by demanding more attention and 

 affording more stimulus to the sight. In like manner, at 

 our tables, luxurious viands sooner pall upon the appetite 

 than those which are plain and simple. But while the 

 opposite of elegance is agreeable in a natural scene, this 

 cannot be said of the opposite of neatness. A canton- 

 ment of Irish laborers calls up none of those images of 

 combined neatness and rusticity which are awakened by 

 the scenes of a genuine New England hamlet. 



I have often seen in the country, a few paces back 

 from the road, certain plain cottages, which are not de- 

 scribed in books of taste and art, that seem to me per- 

 fect examples of neatness and simplicity, without any 

 approach to elegance. The rudeness associated with them 

 is in the grounds and fences, more than in the build- 

 ings. Such houses are now more common in Maine than 

 in Massachusetts. One of these rustic buildings in par- 

 ticular has often attracted my attention. It has never 

 been painted, and the dark stone color of its walls is in 

 pleasant consonance with the green in front and on each 

 side of the house. This is kept closely fed by the farm- 

 er's cows, which are allowed to graze upon it after return- 

 ing from pasture. No fence encloses this beautiful plat 

 of verdure, which is shaded by two drooping elms. Be- 

 neath one of them is a well, with a plain, unadorned curb, 



